Meeting Cost Calculator
The question: what does this meeting actually cost, in salary-weighted time? The formula is straightforward. The honesty comes from the defaults.
The core formula
effective_rate = hourly_rate × (1 + overhead)
cost_per_meeting = effective_rate × attendees × (duration_minutes / 60)
annual_cost = cost_per_meeting × frequency_per_year
2,080 is 40 hours per week × 52 weeks — standard for annualizing salary to hourly. It doesn’t account for holidays or vacation, which makes the hourly number slightly conservative (lower). That’s on purpose.
The 30% overhead
When overhead is enabled (the default), the calculator adds 30% on top of salary to account for the costs the employer bears beyond take-home pay:
- Payroll taxes. Employer-side Social Security, Medicare, FUTA, SUTA. Typically 7.65% to 9% of salary.
- Health and retirement benefits. Employer contributions to health insurance, 401(k) matching, dental/vision. Often 8% to 15% of salary.
- Workspace and overhead. Office space allocation, equipment, software licenses. Varies widely, often 3% to 8%.
30% is a reasonable aggregate for US-based salaried employees. It’s on the conservative side of the Bureau of Labor Statistics ECEC figures, which run closer to 31–33% for professional and managerial roles. If you work in a low-overhead environment (remote, minimal benefits) you can toggle it off.
Why this matters. Most meeting cost calculators skip overhead entirely. That means they’re underestimating the true cost of the meeting by 25–40%. Our default is to include it, because that’s the real number the business is paying.
Frequency multipliers
| Frequency | Meetings per year | Logic |
|---|---|---|
| One-time | 1 | Single meeting |
| Daily (5×/wk) | 260 | 52 wks × 5 days |
| 3× per week | 156 | 52 wks × 3 days |
| Weekly | 52 | Standard year |
| Every 2 weeks | 26 | Bi-weekly |
| Monthly | 12 | Standard year |
These don’t subtract holidays or PTO. In practice most recurring meetings just get skipped on those days, and adjusting by 5–8% either way doesn’t change the decision you’re trying to make with the number.
How we interpret the result
We surface four verdict levels based on cost-per-person, not total cost. A 20-person meeting at $1,200 isn’t “expensive” if it produces a decision that unblocks 20 people. A 3-person meeting at $400 that’s really a status update is expensive, because the cost-per-output is terrible.
- Under $25/person — Lean. Usually fine as long as there’s an actual output.
- $25–$75/person — Typical for a working session. Watch for recurring versions that decay into status.
- $75–$150/person — Audit the invite list.
- $150+/person — A real line item. Needs a specific decision or deliverable attached.
Freelance Rate Calculator
The question: what rate do I actually need to charge to hit my take-home goal? Every part of this formula is a mistake freelancers routinely make.
The formula, working backwards
billable_hours_per_year = billable_hours_per_week × working_weeks
minimum_rate = target_revenue / billable_hours_per_year
recommended_rate = minimum_rate × 1.20
Why we start with take-home, not revenue
Most people have a take-home number in their head — what they want to see deposit into their bank account each month. Working backwards from take-home surfaces every cost the rate needs to cover: taxes, health insurance, tools, software, PTO. If you back-calculated from “revenue,” you’d miss most of them.
Default tax rate: 30%
This is a US-specific default. Self-employed individuals pay a 15.3% self-employment tax (Social Security + Medicare) plus federal and state income tax. A combined effective rate of 25–35% is typical for full-time freelancers earning $60K–$150K annually. In high-tax states or at higher income brackets, 35–40% is closer to accurate. The calculator lets you set your own.
Billable utilization: where freelancers get it wrong
Working 40 hours a week doesn’t mean billing 40 hours. Admin, sales, professional development, invoicing, and gaps between projects eat into utilization. Here’s the honest distribution:
| Billable hours / week | Utilization | Who fits |
|---|---|---|
| 15 | 37.5% | Solo, heavy sales load, or early in freelancing |
| 20 (default) | 50% | Experienced independent consultant, stable pipeline |
| 25 | 62.5% | Heavy producer, light sales, repeat clients |
| 30+ | 75%+ | Agency work or extended project sprints only |
We default to 20 because it’s what most sustainable freelancers actually bill. If you’re consistently billing 30+, your rate is probably too low.
The 20% buffer on the recommended rate
The minimum rate assumes everything goes right: you hit your billable hours, clients pay on time, no scope creep. The recommended rate adds 20% to absorb reality:
- Late-paying clients (affects cash flow, not revenue).
- Scope creep you absorb without billing.
- Slow months where you bill 12 hours instead of 20.
- Periods between projects.
You can charge the minimum. You shouldn’t plan your business around it.
Equity Dilution Simulator
The question: what actually comes out of my percentage when we raise? Most calculators only model the round. We model the round plus the option pool shuffle, which is where most of the real dilution happens.
The core formulas
new_investor_pct = raise / post_money
required_pool_pre_round = target_pool_pct / (1 - new_investor_pct)
pool_shuffle_added = max(0, required_pool_pre_round - current_pool_pct)
founder_post_round = founder_pre_round
× (non_pool_holders / (non_pool_holders + pool_shuffle_added))
× (1 - new_investor_pct)
The option pool shuffle — why it hurts founders
Term coined by Fred Wilson. The mechanic: investors typically require the option pool to be created or topped up before their investment closes. Because the new option shares are issued pre-money, the dilution falls entirely on the founders and existing shareholders, not the incoming investors.
In practice, this means the effective pre-money valuation is lower than the headline number. A $10M pre-money with a 15% pool shuffle isn’t really a $10M pre-money — it’s closer to an $8.5M pre-money after the shuffle dilutes existing shareholders by 15%.
The simulator shows you exactly how many percentage points of dilution come from the round itself versus the pool shuffle. This is the single most useful output of the tool.
Typical option pool sizes by stage
| Stage | Target pool (post-round) | Typical shuffle |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-seed | 5–10% | Often skipped |
| Seed (institutional) | 10–15% | 5–10% shuffle |
| Series A | 15–20% | Often required, 5–10% shuffle |
| Series B+ | 15–20% | Usually no shuffle if pool is fresh |
When no shuffle is required
If your current pool is already at or above what the target pool would be post-round, no shuffle is needed. The calculator automatically detects this and shows zero shuffle dilution. You still get diluted by the round itself — that part is unavoidable math.
What this tool doesn’t model. SAFEs and convertible notes converting simultaneously, multi-tranche rounds with different valuations, participating preferred liquidation preferences, anti-dilution provisions at later rounds. For those, you need a real cap table tool. This is for the common case: one priced round, straightforward cap table, you want to see what comes out of your ownership.
What these tools aren’t.
Worth being direct about this, because it affects whether you should trust the output.
They’re not legal, tax, or financial advice
The calculators are educational. For anything that actually changes your tax filing, cap table, or contract structure, talk to a professional who knows your specific situation. We run the math. We don’t know your context.
They’re not perfectly tuned to every jurisdiction
Defaults are US-centric. The freelance tax rate assumes US self-employment tax. The meeting cost overhead assumes US benefits cost structure. If you’re operating elsewhere, you’ll need to override the defaults with your own numbers — the tools are built to let you do that.
They don’t learn from you
Your inputs stay in your browser. We don’t store them, we don’t use them to refine defaults, and we don’t build a profile on you. That also means we can’t personalize anything. It’s a trade-off. See the privacy policy.
How we keep the math current.
Defaults age. Tax rates change. Benefits costs shift. We review every calculator at least once a year and update the defaults when real-world numbers have moved materially. The last methodology review is dated at the top of this page.
When an update changes a default, we keep a note in the tool’s FAQ explaining what changed and why. We don’t do silent revisions on things that affect the math.
Spotted something that looks wrong, or have a source we should incorporate? Send a note. We read everything.